Wild Men of Alaska 03 - Dreamweaver

stay with me, you can leave this place?”
    “Yes.”
    But what kind of hell would that be? In her life but not. A spirit to wander and never die.
    “Let’s not talk about that.” He gave her a hard, quick kiss. “I don’t want to waste one moment of being with you like this.” His lips trailed down her neck.
    “Could I stay here with you?”
    He froze, and then his head came up, his eyes piercing hers. “No. Don’t even entertain the thought. This isn’t living. It’s existing. No hunger, yet you can eat if you want to. Everything you think you want is provided, but it isn’t real.” He released her and fell back on the grass, linking his arms behind his head gazing up at the sky. “At first, I loved it here. I climbed all those mountains, explored endless valleys and hills. Experienced beauty in landscapes like I’d never seen before. But there was always something off. There is no challenge. No change.”
    “How long will I be able to stay here with you?”
    He turned, and his sad eyes meet hers. “You’re already leaving me, babe.” His finger traced the side of her face, her bottom lip, trailing over the curve of her chin. “I suspect you look to me now, how I look to you. There is translucence about you, and you’re fading, fast.”
    She felt it now, a heaviness pulling her as though she was anchored somewhere and the slack was being pulled out of the line. It must be the effects of the sleeping pill, or whatever her mother had given her, wearing off.
    “I don’t want to leave you.” Not after finally being with him. Loving him.
    He kissed her, held her locked within his arms, yet she could feel herself slipping away. His mouth became more demanding, as he gripped her tighter. There was a moan of despair as she was taken from him, ripped from the comfort and love she’d found in his arms.
    A cry as if his heart were being torn from his chest ripped through the tatters of space.
    ***
    Gemma jerked up in bed feeling like the wind had been knocked out her. She was cold, the bed empty, and she was fully dressed in her “I Otter Be Asleep” pajamas. The same pajamas that she remembered stripping out of in front of Lucky.
    That hadn’t been a dream. It couldn’t be. She knew it in her core, in her heart. But waking up in her bed made it hard to believe she’d actually made love to Lucky.
    Despair threatened to swamp her. She climbed out of bed, and any doubt that she’d been with him evaporated. It had been a long time since she’d been with someone and the physical aches were a pleasurable reassurance that she hadn’t dreamt being with him. The night had been magical, what they’d shared had been out of this world.
    She chuckled with the thought. Out of this world pretty much said it all.
    She jumped in the shower, humming as she got ready for work. It wasn’t until she was on the way to Chinook Books that the gravity of her situation hit her.
    She’d slept with her Dreamweaver, participated in astral sex, and would do so again if given the opportunity.
    And didn’t she have the opportunity shut away in the drawer of her night table in the form of a baggie of little white pills her mother had supplied her?

Chapter Sixteen

    Saturdays were always busy, and Gemma was able to lose herself in book recommending, one of her favorite things about running the bookstore. There was a steady stream of customers until about three in the afternoon.
    She was in love with a man with no foreseeable way of having a normal relationship. But then who really had a normal relationship? Her parents hadn’t. They hadn’t even been married, in the legal sense. Siri didn’t believe in a legal document proclaiming them married by the government. Instead, they’d participated in a hand-fasting when Gemma had been old enough to be the flower child.
    Her father had been the exact opposite of her mother, and he’d loved all the differences. Gemma remembered how he’d looked at Siri with so much love it hurt as though the definition of the Universe was held within Siri’s eyes.
    Lucky had looked at her like that last night.
    A bittersweet smile curved her lips. What would her father say about the situation she’d gotten herself into? Would he warn her off like Siri had, or encourage her to follow her heart?
    As logical as her father had been, when it came to love he was as impractical as Siri. One thing Gemma did know, Siri had never loved her father. Not like he'd loved her.
    Gemma had checked in